John William North

Phillips, Bath, 13 February 1995, lot 16;
The Maas Gallery, London, October 1998

The paper does not appear to be laid down, surface very slightly dirty with a few faint spots of foxing in the sky. Held under glass in gilt composite frame; unexamined out of frame.
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The Bat begins with giddy wing
His circuit round the shed and tree;
And clouds of dancing gnats to sing
A Summer night's serenity.
(T.I.M. Forster, 'August 16th' in Circle of the Seasons and Perpetual Key to the Calendar and Almanack, London, 1828, p.409)

North has taken as the title of his watercolour a poem from a remarkable book by Thomas Forster charting the history, antiquities and natural phenomena of each day in the year. In the vision before us of wild and tangled vegetation at the height of summer, a rabbit nestled in the corner, we see North pay homage to Forster's work.

A significant influence on North was Fred Walker, and this work is an example of North’s adoption of Walker’s detailed and poetic representations of nature. However, as Martin Hadie has observed: ‘He [North] was much more interested than Walker in atmosphere, and his wish to make his drawings tingle and shimmer with light led him to paint multitudinous details melting together, with spots and particles of pure colour. His method can be compared with pointillisme; certainly, he was groping for method of expression which the French Impressionists developed more fully’ (Watercolour Painting in Britain, Vol. III The Victorian Period, 1968, p.138).